Warframe has been getting increasingly, delightfully weird over the last couple of years, leading up to last year’s time-travelling, NPC-romancing blast back to 1999. And things are about to get even wilder when developer Digital Extremes invites players to start kicking boy band butt in its new Techrot Encore update, arriving on 19th March.
Techrot Encore sees Digital Extremes building on last year’s 1999 update by introducing a range of new gameplay systems. That begins with the introduction of the Technocyte Coda – a corruption of Warframe’s in-game 90s boy band On-lyne, whose members (Harddrive, Zeke, Drillbit, Packet, and DJ RoM) will randomly appear in levels until players defeat them.
It’s an adversary system – originally due to launch last year until it ballooned into something more expansive – that works similarly to Warframe’s Kuva Lich and Sisters of Parvos. As such, players – who’ll need to have completed The Hex quest first – can’t have a Lich or Sister tied to them if they want to experience the Technocyte Coda. Oh and be warned that you’ll gain a steadily growing pimple until you manage to defeat your bothersome boy band foe.
On top of that, Techrot Encore adds four new Protoframes to 1999’s Höllvania Mall, which has been expanded to provide access to the grungy The Round Table pub. Here, players can meet Velimir (the Protoframe of Frost) and his ex-wife Minerva (Saryn), as well as brilliant young engineer Kaya Velasco, the Protoframe of Nova. And lastly, there’s the David Bowie-inspired Flare – the only surviving member of a band called Temple, and the Protoframe for the game’s musically inclined, talking-guitar-wielding 60th Warframe, Temple.